Today I ran in the Granite Games Half Marathon in St.Cloud. If you check out the website, disregard the photo; there were nowhere near that many participants, but more on that later. This early September half has been in the area for around 10 years and this is the fourth different course. This year, it was in conjunction with the Kill Cliff Granite Games, a Cross Fit competition drawing athletes from all over the world. When I described the Crossfitters to Mom earlier, I said that they made the half marathoners and 5K runners look "squishy." There are some super fit people with muscles on their muscles. While they didn't probably admire our physiques, I'd wonder how many of them thought the idea of running 13+ miles sounded a little crazy. I saw the weight competition area and didn't want anything to do with that! In the days leading up to the race, the organizers were offering better and better deals on the entry fees via Facebook. Originally, race day registration was supposed to be $65, but they'd knocked that down to $30 to draw more runners. When we registered, the choice for a shirt said ladies tank top which Deb and I were both excited about. What we got was a unisex long sleeve shirt. It's a simple design and the sleeve will be plenty long for those first cool days when I don't quite need mitts, but something over the hands would be good. While most things today went off without a hitch, gathering our race bibs and shirts was not good. The registration area had super long lines and was not too organized. The volunteers were friendly, but not too fast. A lot of people were anxious/nervous/angry by the time they got their materials. The teacher from our staff running club ended up hiding her shirt behind a trash can to retrieve after the race because there wasn't time to take it to her car before the start. Once the race began, things went much smoother. Since it was a small crowd, we started up near the front and worried about the feeling of running backward, but it worked out ok. The first few miles mostly followed miles 4-10 of the Earth Day Half. At the top of the dreaded Mile 10 hill at Earth Day, we headed further out of St.Cloud to a park with trails through the prairie which was beautiful. If I'd have been having a slower race, I'd have stopped to take some photos, but it was going well and I wanted to stay in my groove (Go, Stella!). There were adequate water and Powerade stops along the way and pora-potties available at 6,7 and 8.5 miles. I'm happy to report that I didn't need any of those! My friends each took a pit stop, but that was ok, too, as we try to use our yoga mantra of "Don't worry about it; just take care of it." All throughout the race, we could see other runners ahead and behind us and never felt alone. There were lots of on-course volunteers to be sure no one got lost and every busy intersection was controlled by St. Cloud Police Department. I tried to thank as many volunteers as possible. That's much easier to do when I feel comfortable running :-) At about 12.5 miles, Marian asked, "Should we just walk it in from here?" I asked if she was kidding as we were cruising along nicely and she said NO! I said we were NOT walking from here!!! I think she's glad for that tough love as she finished a few seconds ahead of me and Deb a few seconds behind. I finished in 1:55:48 which came out to 8:55 per mile. I'm very satisfied with the effort and happy about the fun day we had. I also won my age group (40-49) placing 32nd overall out of 128 finishers and 19th overall in women. I wish I had taken some photos, though. The only one I got was when I was about to leave and got this one near the finish area. Another teacher from our school was there to cheer for her husband and she said she took some pictures as well as cheer for us. I'll share those when I get them. Once we were done, the finish line food was not too exciting. They had water, sport drink, bananas and cookies. On my current food regimen, water was the only allowed item. I was a little surprised by the cookies as CrossFit athletes often talk about eating "clean." I'm pretty sure sugar and white flour don't meet their definition of clean. I guess that's why the squishy people got the cookies???
Would I do this run again? Probably, especially at the price of $35 that we got a few weeks ago. Most half marathons are in the $50-100 range and while this one was pretty small without a lot of amenities, it is only 10 miles from home and had everything that is required for a nice event. I'd have likely run 13 miles today with the same friends today anyway and this way we got to try a different route and someone provided us with drinks of water every few miles. I'm quite confident that the volunteers at registration would have some ideas for next year to make that a smoother process. Have a great weekend and happy running! Missee
1 Comment
Stephanie
9/8/2018 07:20:56 pm
Way to go!!!! Congrats on a great race!
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AuthorMissee and Stephanie are two Minnesota sisters and moms who love to run. We are not experts in running, parenting or anything else, but we do have years of experiences that may be helpful or entertaining to others. Archives
May 2020
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